Bone is a huge, broad-shouldered,[5] muscular, battle-scarred,[6] black-and-white tom[5] with long legs,[7] green eyes,[8] a scar between his eyes,[9] and a collar studded with teeth from dogs and claws from cats.[10]

Contents

History

In the prologue, Bone is the cat who challenges Tigerstar and Boulder at the edge of BloodClan's territory. Boulder greets him, asking if he remembered him. With narrowed eyes, Bone stares at him for a few silent moments, until he says that Boulder had told them he was leaving to find a better life in the forest. He steps forward and Boulder unsheathes his claws, explaining that they wish to see Scourge. With a snort of contempt Bone scoffs that Scourge wouldn't want to see him, and asks who Boulder's companion is.

Tigerstar introduces himself and his wish to see his leader, and Tigerstar says he'll talk to the leader about his intentions, not to his border patrol when Bone demands to know what he wants. Bone bristles until Boulder steps between them, insisting Scourge needs to hear as it could be to every cat's advantage. Bone hesistates for several moments until he agrees to let them pass to see the BloodClan leader, though his gaze remains hostile as they go.

Bone is present at the meeting of TigerClan, LionClan, and BloodClan, and Firestar imagines him to be the leader beause of his size and battle scars. He leaves with the rest of BloodClan after Scourge kills Tigerstar and tells the forest Clans they have three days to leave the forest, or meet BloodClan in battle.

Later, when Firestar visits Ravenpaw, Barley, who was in BloodClan as a younger cat, mentions briefly that he knew Bone, and says he is brutal and nearly as bad as Scourge himself. He also says that Bone wasn't much of a deputy, and Barley makes it sound as though Bone was more of a willing cat who carried out Scourge's dirty work.

During the battle between LionClan and BloodClan, Bone kills Firestar's aging deputy, Whitestorm. He springs backward as Firestar and Graystripe race at him, only to be attacked by Bramblepaw, who leaps onto his back, and Ashpaw, who sinks his teeth into Bone's leg, distracting him long enough to give Firestar time to say his last goodbye to Whitestorm. He starts to shake them off until a screech sounds and Featherpaw, Stormpaw, and Tawnypaw join in in attacking the tom.

Bone isn't able to defeat the apprentices, and the massive deputy has no chance of success. Within moments, he gives up the battle for life and dies under the claws of the swarm of the angry young apprentices, avenging the death of Whitestorm.

In the Stand-Alone Manga

When Bone and a cat called Brick find out about a kitten named Tiny who killed a dog, they go to find him. When they discover the so-called dog-slayer, they ask if the rumors were true; if the small kitten had really killed a dog. Tiny lies, and says that the rumors are in fact the truth.

Due to the information, the two cats lead Tiny to a dumpster, where a huge dog, who has been bothering the alley cats has made his den. Bone asks Tiny to kill the dog so that the cats can get to their food, or Tiny must leave before midnight. At one point, he remarks snidely that Tiny might have been lying all along, but he and Brick leave it to him anyway. Tiny's shadow on the wall appears very big, which scares the dog away, though Bone and the other rogues believe that the dog was driven off by Tiny fighting it. After one of the alley cats asks what his name is, Tiny thinks back to when his mother called the forest cats a scourge on all good cats, and announces to the surrounding cats that his name is Scourge.

Bone continues to stay close to Scourge, and begins to serve as an unofficial deputy of BloodClan, the group of alley cats, lead by Scourge.

Bone is mentioned in Barley's story. Barley notes that he knew his two brothers would seek out Bone and try to be part of Scourge's guard. Barley and Violet lived together, and Barley was terrified that Bone would find out. Bone had caught him a few times with mice, and Barley would give him the mice, saying they were an offering for Scourge. Bone liked that, and Barley knew that the mice would disappear in his mouth once he went away, even though he knew he had to be lying. Bone later demonstrated fighting skills on Barley for a pair of kits.

When Scourge finds out about Violet, he captures her, and Barley tries to save her. Bone slams his paw into Barley's head, and Barley can't move. Scourge orders Barley's two brothers, Snake and Ice (Jumper and Hoot), to attack Violet, and Bone pins him down harder. Bone lifts his paws and looks down at Barley with a look of disgust in his eyes. He says that he shouldn't try to fight BloodClan again, as they always win. Bone was mentioned as being Scourge's "deputy."

Rock tells the three kits that he shouldn't have left Scourge and Bone for last; because he didn't want to give them nightmares about Scourge, Bone, and BloodClan, and their murderous acts; he says that BloodClan was just a group of rogues who didn't deserve the name Clan; no code of honor; no sense of right and wrong.

He explains that Scourge and Bone were self-appointed to their positions in BloodClan, neither had a ceremony to announce their power over BloodClan. Neither Scourge nor Bone believed in StarClan, so Scourge didn't have nine lives and Bone wasn't an official deputy; and their lack of belief in StarClan was their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

He also explains how Bone died, taken down by a group of apprentices after he killed Whitestorm, who was Firestar's first deputy. Rock says if the kits hadn't have died when they did, they would've been fighting beside them, had they known Whitestorm; the wise and gentle warrior who died protecting what he loved, his Clan.

Bone doesn't formally appear in this book, but he is mentioned by Tigerstar. While he is taking the reader on a tour of the forest. When he reaches Fourtrees, Tigerstar shows the reader where Whitestorm, Firestar's first deputy, was killed by Bone.

He tells the reader how, after he'd killed Whitestorm, Bone had been brought to the ground by a group of apprentices who avenged their deputy's death. They clawed the life out of Bone, and even in the Place of No Stars, Tigerstar could hear Bone's screams of pain and the apprentices' screeches of victory.

He has his own page share with Scourge. Although Bone was never viewed by Scourge as an equal, he did value the tom's raw strength and courage in battle. Based on his appearance, the Clans originally thought that Bone was the leader of BloodClan, instead of the vicious smaller tom who actually led them. He and Scourge both died in the same battle- Bone's life being taken by a swarm of apprentices, after the murder of Whitestorm, which he was responsible for. It is also said that it's somewhat of a tragedy that he never lived the life of a warrior, and his loyalty to Scourge never wavered.

Trivia

When asked if Bone's collar color was actually rainbow, Vicky replied that she was stumped with the question, and then expressed an interest in dark blue being his actual collar color.[11]

Quotes

"Bone caught me a few times with an extra mouse in my teeth. When he snarled at me, I would give him both mice and tell him they were an offering for Scourge. He liked that, although he must have known I was lying, just as I knew that those mice would disappear into his own mouth the moment I walked away."